


Crossed Wires

by airshipper



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-06
Updated: 2014-02-06
Packaged: 2018-01-11 09:54:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1171695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/airshipper/pseuds/airshipper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one was really sure what they were expecting, but The Boy Who Lived sorted into Slytherin was not it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crossed Wires

Harry Potter liked to think was a relatively ordinary boy. His hair was dark and stuck up too much. His eyesight was poor and his face apparently very punchable, resulting in hastily repaired glasses. He had a curious scar that he rather liked, although his aunt hated it. When she took his stiff and out of control hair into her own hands, she always left a tuft in the front to cover it. Harry wished she wouldn't do that, but he wished more that his hair would not manage to grow back again over night. Scars though, however curiously shaped, were also perfectly mundane and, in Harry’s case, the result of the car crash the killed his parents.

His dreams were quite strange. At least, Harry thought they were quite strange. He tended not to share them with his Aunt and Uncle. The last time, he had been grounded for thinking ridiculous thoughts. He didn’t have friends to share them with, and his cousin would only laugh or tattle, so Harry wasn't actually sure if all his dreams were strange.

He dreamed of bright green flashes, and screams. He thought these might be the car crash, and was quite impressed that he could remember it. He wished he could remember his parents faces though, and how their voices sounded when they weren’t facing death.

He dreamed of flying through the sky on a loud, huge motorcycle. He was in front on a massive figure with a heavy leather jacket and a huge bushy black beard. He could hear the bike in his dreams, smell the leather. It felt more like a memory than a dream.

His strangest dream by far though, was the dream he couldn't remember when he woke up. He was always woke up from it disoriented, he didn't know where he was, and he almost always hit his head. Sometimes he stood up and hit the stair, sometimes he turned too quick, and hit the door with a painful thud. (Lately though, his Uncle had been very strange, and Harry was in the smallest bedroom, and only fell out of bed instead.)

The strangest part of his strangest dream, more than the lack of memory, or the disorientation, was that Harry always felt afterwards that everything was very, very unordinary.

 

Harry was not struck again by this feeling for rest of the summer. It hit him suddenly like a wave. He staggered, nearly knocking over several other nervous eleven-year-olds standing near him. Someone squeaked, and he heard a high pitched and slightly squeaky “Watch it, mate!”.

“Sorry! Sorry.” Harry said quickly and straightened up. He frowned, brows furrowed. It was a strange time for things to feel, well, strange. He hadn't felt like this when a giant accidentally felled a door and gave his cousin a curly tail. It felt extraordinary when he walked into a building no one else seemed to see, or when he walked through several walls like doors, but it hadn’t felt unordinary.

Now, as the tall witch with strict lines on her face and in her clothes led them into a massive hall, Harry felt unordinary. He couldn't help but think that something was going to happen and he had no idea if it would be good or bad. Everything about the wizarding world had been enchanting so far. Invigorating, hopeful, like a new life. A corner of his mind wondered it must be too good to be true, and if that was what he felt.

He looked up as the teacher, Professor McGonagall, placed a hat and stool purposefully at the front of the room, in the center of the four lines of colorful tables, and before the long table full of adults. He looked around at the other students faces, but they had the same almost frowns and glancing curious gaze that he did. The professor spoke and all attention fell on her.  
“When I call your name, walk up to the stool. When your house is named, walk over to the appropriate table.” She said, emphasising walk in a way that reminded Harry that teachers here were not that different than muggle teachers. “Abbot, Hannah.”

A short, chubby girl walked quickly up to the hat and tripped up and nearly onto the stool. The hat covered half her face. The hall went silent except for some whispering behind Harry. He glanced back and staggered a bit as the students behind him shuffled abruptly further into the hall. He felt whoever he bumped into and the students in front of him push back a little, and the whispering get a little louder. Most of the students around him were trying to look over the heads of the students in back to see what was happening until the hat suddenly yelled

“HUFFLEPUFF!” Just like that the students stilled and everyone was looking forward again. Harry blinked at the strange word and decided that there were a great deal of things he had neglected to ask Hagrid. Professor McGonagall took the hat and pointed, and Hannah Abbot, Hufflepuff, ran off towards the yellow table.

The hissing whispers started up again and Harry heard a slightly louder “Git”. So did the eleven year olds around him, judging by the almost synchronised turning of heads back towards the voices, then quickly forward again as another student was called forward.

The hat shouted Hufflepuff several more times and Harry was just starting to wonder if it was a magic spell, or some way to say the hat was finished. Someone budged past him suddenly, or past the person next to him. It was hard to tell. Then the hat shouted a new word and Terry Boot walked off to the blue table instead of the yellow one. Harry frowned. Hufflepuff didn’t mean done. Perhaps it meant yellow.

He was very sure he had missed some very important instruction when he was thinking about dreams. No one else seemed confused, or at least not nearly as much as he did. Or at least, not about that.

“Finnigan, Seamus.” Professor McGonagall said and Hermione Granger made a face. The sandy haired boy made a face right back at her as he passed. She watched as he sat down and the hat slipped over his face, and thought very nastily at him that he looked ridiculous. “GRYFFINDOR!” the hat shrieked and Seamus jumped off the stool. Hermione tried to stomp as quietly as she could in frustration. Gryffindor was not, she thought, all it was said to be if it let such a, a git into its doors.

“Granger, Hermione.” Hermione jumped, thick brown hair bushing out from her face then flying back and she came quickly forward. She hadn’t even heard where the students before her had been sent. She sat with a soft whump on the stool and blinked as the hat fell over her eyes and the Great Hall with its beautiful night sky was hidden.

“Ahhh, Ms. Granger yes? Yes of course it is. Oh, you are going to be wonderful, wonderful.” A voice said right into her ear, or maybe her head. It sounded a bit like her old grandmother had, creaky and leathery and thoughtful.

You speak! Hermione thought, and felt a bit foolish. The hat seemed to chuckle.

“I do. You are clever, so clever, and brave. Ahh, yes I think...”

I don’t want Gryffindor, Hermione thought as politely as she could.

“Oh! Really?” the hat said. “You would do well. There, you be a eagle among minnows. You are only all clever birds in RAVENCLAW!” Hermione sucked in a surprised breath and stood abruptly. She gave the hat carefully back to Professor McGonagall and said a quiet breathy “Thank you”, though she wasn’t sure who to, and rushed away.

She sat nervously smiling among the clapping Ravenclaws and felt a welcoming clap on her shoulder. She smiled widely, uncertainty finally washing away. Strangely enough the feeling, sort of like deja vu, but without the memory (almost like she had tried to go up a step that wasn’t there) had vanished. She had been feeling it all summer, but she supposed it disappeared once she had been sorted. She was so nervous she hadn’t even noticed.

She settled down to watch the rest of the sorting with the rest of her house. (Her house! she thought.) She sucked in a surprised and delighted breath and waited in tense silence with the rest of the school when Harry Potter was called to the front. She recognised him! He had been sitting alone in a compartment when she went around asking about poor Neville’s poor toad. He had been surrounded by the sweets from the food cart, looking excitedly through some of the school books when she entered. She hoped he might be in Ravenclaw too, then, and they might meet and be friends. He might be a Gryffindor, though. People who defeated dark lords were relatively Gryffindor like people, according to the books she read.

“SLYTHERIN!” the hat called out and the hall went impossibly even quieter. Harry hopped up as though nothing were strange about that at all and ran off towards the green Slytherin table, robes changing color as he went. No noise was heard except for the almost painful gentle clapping from the Headmaster until Harry sat down.

Then, as though sitting had released them from a spell, the Slytherins burst into riotous, delighted shrieks and laughter and uproarious clapping. Harry was nearly bowled over on both sides by the welcoming thumps on his back and shoulders. He grinned nervously back, face red, but finding it hard to be anything but happy at the warm welcome. He turned in his seat to the other houses and the stool and hat in the middle of the room. The other tables were staring openly at him, but turned away when Professor McGonagall called, very pointedly, Harry thought, for “Rivers, Oliver!” to come forward.

He was distracted from the proceedings by several students trying to get his attention and introduce themselves. “Oh, I’m, um, Harry Potter.” He said, concerned that he was never going to remember the names being fired at him. An older student reached over and swatted the hands reaching out to shake Harry’s away.

“Stop that, stop that. There’s time enough for that later.” she hissed. “You lot shut up and pay attention.”

Harry dutifully and gratefully turned back to the sorting ceremony. He saw, only a little disappointed that the small group he had left was down to only two students, rocking back and forth on heels and plucking at clothes. “Weasley, Ronald.”, a red haired boy that Harry recognised as being one of the children of the kindly woman who helped him through the barrier at King’s Cross. A cheerful whooping noise came up from the red Gryffindor table, silenced with a sharp look from Professor McGonagall. Harry watched curiously as the red haired boy sat on the stool for a long time.

The hall was starting to whisper when the hat finally called out “HUFFLEPUFF!”, and then it went silent. Harry paused, about to clap, but everyone seemed to be watching curiously. He heard behind him someone mutter.

“Got to be a mistake, hasn’t it?”

Slowly, Ron Weasley, removed the hat from his head. It vanished from his hands, up, towards the teacher. His face felt very, very red, and he couldn’t tell if the rushing sound in his ears was from yelling or not. He felt his feet moving and looked up briefly to make sure he was heading to the correct table. (Yellow. Yellow, not Red.) He tried not to think about the many ways his brothers would shame him into the grave. He resolutely ignored the imagined faces of his parents’ surprise, the disappointment, quickly hidden by enthusiastic reassurances.

The clapping from the Hufflepuffs started before he sat, patchy and confused before it transformed to an enthusiastic welcome. A seat on the bench opened up and Ron slid in not hearing the clapping and barely registering the friendly jostling. His mind fed back to him the hat’s words on endless, malicious repeat.

“You want to stand apart from your brothers? I think you’ll really stand well then in HUFFLEPUFF.”

“You want to stand apart from your brothers? I think you’ll really stand well then in HUFFLEPUFF.”

“You want to stand apart from your brothers? I think you’ll really stand well then in HUFFLEPUFF.”

“You want to stand apart from your brothers? I think you’ll really stand well then in HUFFLEPUFF.”

He finally pulled himself out of his thoughts when the scent of food got through to him like a punch in the gut. A boy, an older student with dark short hair and dark skin and a concerned soft smile on his lips, was nudging him.

“You alright? C’mon, the foods great.” he said, then, “Is it homesickness?” Ron shook his head very quickly.

“No, ‘m fine.” He grabbed the nearest plate and scooped out a pile of what turned out to be potatoes onto his plate. Another first year was on his left. She smiled nervously and chewed her food for a little too long before asking Ron if he “wanted to be friends, maybe?”.

“Um.” Ron said, then stuffed a potato in his mouth. The older students across the table tried to introduce themselves to him, and to her. Ron tried very hard to ignore them.

Mid way through the feast Ron finally felt like he might survive his first night at school. The rushing left, the food smelled abruptly delicious and not just an excuse not to talk. He scanned the table and reached over the other students to grab a plate of sliced beef, the nearest bowl of peas, and a pudding, and piled them on his potatoes. He looked around, head down and eating, at the rest of the house. The students all around him were talking. The older two in front of him were giggling and relaying a story, and the boy on his right was humming thoughtfully around a spoon in his mouth. They weren’t trying to interact with him anymore.

The girl on his left would attempt conversation from time to time. “I’m Susan... Um.” Ron didn’t reply.

“I wonder what classes will be like.” She was distracted by the older students as they told about the teachers, with wild stories and energetic gestures.

“Could you pass the butter?” Ron did after a moment. “Thank you! Butter’s nicer than jam i think. Except in the mornings. Sometimes...” He looked away and stared at his plate again pointedly.

Susan chewed her top lip gently. “You’re, you’re a Weasley, right? I think my mum knows your dad...” Ron blinked at her, vaguely remembering her family name was Bones, and even more vaguely recognising the name.

The rushing noise flooded back and Ron almost choked on his meat. His heart sped up and he swallowed and grabbed for water with shaking hands. He stared the little waves the water made in the cup, up and down the sides. He watched them until his racing heart stopped, and noticed the rest of the table suddenly moving. The rushing noise had given way to the sounds of hundreds of students moving at once from the great hall.

An arm, yellow cuffs, pulled him away from the wave of students and down the winding halls. He heard talking and figured out after a moment that someone was narrating their way through the castle. He blinked , stopping quickly with the rest of the little group of short students. The person narrating their way through the castle had been the boy next to him.

He stood in front of a massive painting of a series of barrels going into the distance, coming up as high and wide as a large doorway.

“Right, young’uns.” He said. “This is the way into the dorms. Remember where it is. This is your home away from home.” Ron scoffed. “To get in, first get your wand out, you touch a pattern on the barrels alright?” He moved his wand in a short pattern over the tops of the barrels, large ones in the front then up and across the little ones in the back, and forward again. A crease formed down the middle of the painting and the wall split open and swung inward.

Ron furrowed his brows. How was he supposed to remember that. Was it up, left, down... no-

“Calm down! It’s here, come in. I’ll show you. It’s easier than you lot think I promise!” They flood in and crowded around and watched while the prefect bustled around. The common room was very warm looking, soft yellows and dark greys everywhere, thick chairs by the fire and a thick carpet covering most of the room. There were windows all along one of the walls, and a roaring fireplace on the opposite.

There were a few amused giggles from the students already there and more students trickling in from the hall behind the first years that stopped to watch. The prefect scribbled on a torn scrap of parchment. Ron was beginning to get very curious about his name, even as he tried to tamp down the curiousity. After a moment, he stuck the quill behind his ear and held the page up.

“Is that what it is, Rufus?” One of the students that followed the first years in snickered. A crudely draw cookie cutter cat was hastily drawn on the page, with large dots drawn at all the points. Ron bit his lip, not wanting to laugh with the other students, and tried to remember what it looked like.

“Sorry!” Rufus laughed. “It’s a kitty, see? The password changes every two weeks. A drawing will be up on the board over there-” The older students started snickering again as he paused. “You lot let me go around hunting parchment when the drawing was already up! You traitors all of you.” He huffed, and laughed and gestured grandly to the board near the doorway they had passed without seeing. A much neater cookie cutter cat sat pinned to a cork board, with two other papers pinned up beside it. “Much nicer. Even got arrows. The passwords will be there when there’s a change. Remember to check!”

He led them after that to the corridors leading to the dorm rooms. “First years, you’re all the way in the back. Careful, there's a small flight of stairs around third year.” Ron left immediately down the boy’s hall with a few other students. He barely heard Rufus saying behind him. “You’ll get your class schedule at breakfast tomorrow. There’s a meeting back here in the evening! As usual, everyone is to attend.”

Harry sat down on his bed, and breathed out shoulders slouching. His arms didn’t want to work anymore and fell with a soft thump back on the covers. He barely managed to get away from all the Slytherins trying to introduce themselves and clamoring for attention. He was not used to how the wizarding world reacted to him.

The door creaked open and Harry was almost tempted to pretend to have fallen asleep, fearing more introductions. He sat up, though. He smiled at the boys from his year as they wandered in. There was a boy he remembered standing out, with pale hair and pale skin and pale eyes he was nearly a specter. Two other boys followed, a taller boy, heavy and square, and a boy with a sharp nose and quick sharp eyes. The blond boy smiled close lipped at Harry and Harry smiled shyly back.

“Harry Potter!” he said. “I’m Draco Malfoy. It’s good to finally have a chance to meet you.” Harry snorted a little. “This is Crabbe, and this is Goyle.” He said gesturing to either side of him. The sharp boy who had been looking curiously at Harry turned abruptly to Draco.

“‘M not Goyle!” he said. Draco blinked at him. Then walked back out the door and looked around curiously. “I’m Theodore Nott.” he said to Harry. “You’re really famous.”  
“Um.” Harry said.

“Where did he get off to... Got lost here of all places. It’s just down the stairs.” Draco was saying, and walked out the door. Harry looked at the other boy, Crabbe. Crabbe seemed nervous and kept glancing back at the door.

“Nice to meet you both.” Harry said. They both turned to him. Theodore smirked and shrugged and paced the room, looking for the bed with his trunk beside it. Crabbe blinked and looked around. He looked at Harry, next to his trunk, and Theodore, who sat on the bed he found, then walked carefully to his own trunk and sat down on the bed.

Draco came back in. “Harry Potter!” he said again. “Sorry, Goyle managed to get lost. This is Goyle. That’s Crabbe.” Harry nodded, trying to look serious and attentive instead of laughing. Goyle was shorter, and rounder. He spotted Crabbe on his bed and wandered over to him. Harry wondered if those three knew each other before school. He wondered if all kids from wizarding families did. He also wondered who the last bed belonged to, but didn’t wonder long.

A striking, short boy with dark skin and darker hair came in last. He looked around at all of them with long curious eyes and smiled the sort of way that Harry has seen his Aunt smile. She reserved that face for people she didn’t know, but was pretty sure she would see a lot of from now on. Perfectly pleasant in the way it analysed every inch of you.

“I’m Blaise Zabini, please meet you all.” He said and walked past all the beds and into the adjoining room. “Looks like you’re all settled, I’ll take the shower then?”

The length of the day finally sank into Harry, and his tired arms felt absolutely boneless now. He clumsily changed into pajamas and fell into bed. He was asleep in a moment.

 

Hermione looked curiously at her schedule, nibbling at her food. The girls in her year were all sitting together as a group, but no one was saying anything. They were all reading too. The older students were talking quietly together.

“Hullo!” Hermione said softly to them. The girls in her dorms had come to a sort of awkward and abrupt decision that they should be concentrating on school work when Hermione attempted to introduce herself last night.

“Ah, what do you need?” A tall girl, even sitting, with a heavy and strong look to her turned to Hermione.

“Oh, well, nothing, not exactly. I just wanted to know, what are classes like? I’m Hermione.”

“You’ll be better off asking a prefect, Hermione.” She said and went back to talking softly with her friend. Hermione couldn’t figure out what she had done wrong, the tall girl talked cheerfully enough about classes to her friend. Her own year was hardly speaking except for the brief moment when they all shared their schedules and confirmed they were identical.

The boys looks just as silent. Is it because they were knew? But then how long would it be before they became closer like the tall girl and her friend. Hermione felt disappointment creeping in and defiantly grabbed herself more breakfast and got up early to try and find her class.

The other first year Ravenclaws followed. The professor (Flitwick, he told them to call him) looked amused at the crowd outside his door, but unsurprised.

“We’ll start early then, shall we?” He said in his squeaky voice.

Charms was wonderful and fun and

silent except for the casting of spells.

Defense against the Dark Arts was fascinating and their teacher certainly looked like he had seen some things in his day, nervous and stuttering. They didn’t cast anything and it was

silent except for the stuttered lecture and the scratching of quills.

“What did you think, of the class?” Hermione tried. Padma looked concerned at her.

“Did you miss something? You could look at my notes if you want.”

“Oh! No, I, never mind. Thank you, I didn’t miss anything.” She smiled awkwardly and Padma smiled awkwardly back. They all went back to being awkwardly, smilingly, silent.

Hermione was sure she would explode from the silence if this happened for the rest of the year. She let her head fall to her desk with a thump mercifully muffled by her hair.

Harry woke up more than ready for classes. He found himself grinning all the way down to breakfast. The owls came swooping in, landing delicately away from the food. Harry blinked, watching Draco, a few seats away, carefully detaching a letter from the massive horned owl in front of him.

All around him students were getting mail and

Hedwig swooped out of the air and dropped gracefully across from Harry.

In her beak was a letter and Harry grinned so widely his cheeks hurt. “Thanks, Hedwig.” He whispered and snuck her a piece of sausage. The letter was small, and not much more than a few sentences:

“Harry,  
Want to have tea in my hut around 3 ‘o clock?  
Hagrid”

And Harry didn’t think the day could get any better. He wrote back on the back of the letter a hasty “Sure!” and gave it back to Hedwig. With a soundless whoosh of wind she took off back into the air, swooping and gliding, avoiding all the other owls in the air.

“Who was that from?” Draco was a lot closer all of a sudden. Harry blinked at him.

“Oh! Hagrid? What, what about you?”

Draco sighed despondently. “My mother. Why are you exchanging letters with the groundskeeper.” Harry frowned at him.

“We’re going to have tea later.” Draco's eyebrows rose slowly and his frown deepened. He gave a sort of shrug, a soft noise of amusement and turned back to breakfast.

“What do you think of the schedule.” He said instead. Harry was feeling less than inclined to talk to him.

“...Dunno what you mean.”

“Double potions, first thing. With Gryffindors.” Harry turned to him slightly, then pulled out his schedule again. Potion with Gryffindors... followed by History of Magic.

“So?”

“Well, it’s gonna be funny isn’t it. The teacher is an old friend of my parents.” He looked at Harry expectantly. Harry shrugged stiffly at him. “Ohh, I forgot you were raised by muggles. Well, I’ve just heard things. He doesn’t like Gryffindors. It’ll be funny, trust me.”

It was not funny, and Professor Snape, old friend to the Malfoys and resident Potions Master, didn’t seem to dislike the Gryffindors nearly so much as he disliked Harry.

“Ahh, Mister Potter... Our resident Celebrity.” He looked up, from his roster and down his long crooked nose at Harry. His eyes jumped briefly to the green insignia on his lapel, then to the Slytherins on either side of him, and finally, briefly, to the other side of the class room which seemed occupied entirely by Gryffindors. “Hnn.” he said, and looked back down.

The rest of the class went about as well, with Harry nearly losing points for Slytherin when he failed to answer the questions Snape fired at him. Nott, who sat next to him, was looking between them in open faced shock.

When they started making their first potion, Harry got his first detention. “Potter, you are abysmal at this and will report back to me after your classes.” Nott scooted his stool a little further away from Harry and tried not to also get a detention.

“Uh, Potter, you heard the same things as I, didn’t you?” He whispered to Harry after class. “I heard this was supposed to be an easy class, for Slytherin.” Harry shrugged helplessly.

“I dunno what I did.”

“Potter! Nott, hello. Potter! What happened?” Draco walked quickly to catch up with them, Crabbe and Goyle follow very close behind. The rest of the Slytherins were not far behind, and trying to look less curious.

“Potter,” A black haired girl with an expression of concerned distaste that Harry had yet to see her without walked up to him. “Did you do something? I thought this was supposed to be an easy class.” He thought her name was a flower like his Aunt’s, but his Aunt’s name was the only one coming to mind.

“So did I!” Nott said, seemingly happy he hadn’t imagined that.

“I thought he just gave us points all class.” A slim, brown girl with very straight brown hair, who Harry did not know the name of, said.

Blaise Zabini settled nearby and Harry wondered if they would get in trouble for clogging the hallway. He snickered. “Professor Snape really hate you doesn’t he.” Harry shrugged helplessly again.

“You really didn’t do anything?” Draco asked.

“No! I’ve never seen him before.”

“Weird.” Draco said, suddenly dismissive. “Whatever. He still won’t take points though.” He said, more to the rest of the group. The flower girl looked relieved and the little crowd of first years started to disperse.

“Potter, don’t sit with me next class.” Nott said, leaning in a little so only Harry heard. Harry sighed. This was very familiar. At least he had Hagrid to look forward to.

 

Ron looked down faintly disinterested at his schedule. Herbology with the Gryffindors, that had been completely uneventful. He didn’t know what he expected. He didn’t know if that made it worse or better. They didn’t pay any attention to him.  
Why would they.

He couldn’t really remember what the homework was, or if any had been assigned. It was the first day so maybe there wasn’t any. He remembered Fred talking very excitedly about Professor McGonagall though. (He had seemed very fond of her, even though most of the stories were how they pulled pranks and she caught them and chewed them out.) She probably assigned something.

He pulled the blankets up over his head really quickly when he heard someone come in. “Hullo! Anyone in here? The house meeting is about to start.”Ron didn’t move until he hear the other student leave.

After a long moment he pulled himself out of the bed and wandered down the hall to watch. Professor Sprout, he had learned, was head of the Hufflepuff house. She was nice enough, which is entirely unexpected for pushover Hufflepuffs. She fluffed out her dirt stained robes and beamed at everyone. “Hello Hufflepuffs new and old! Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts.

“I won’t make a big speech, the Headmaster said everything I would want you to know. As usual, this is mostly for the first years. We all know how hard it can be to adjust to a new place and all this work. I just want you to know that you can come to me with anything wrong.” She smiled encouragingly. Ron couldn’t see her too well through the crowd in the common room, she was short and so was he.

“As well, I want you all to have a friend in the house you can go to if you have little questions or concerns, someone to talk you.” She laughs and so do some of the older students. “Most of you know what’s coming. I encourage students of all ages to form bonds! That way you’ll always have friends where you are going to and coming from. I set this little thing up years ago... A bit of a buddy system.” She said, waving her wand and brightly colored threads shooting out to form names. Ron saw his up there. (And Susan. And Rufus.)

“These are our fresh first years! And some students who volunteered at the end of last year. They volunteered to help support you! I want you to try and pair up, talk a bit. Talk to a couple people!”

Ron shrunk back as the common room starting twisting and milling, Volunteers pulling out to the middle, to be seen, confused first years making their way over to them. It seemed like ages before they seemed to notice there was a missing first year. Ron shrank back further as he heard the voices grow louder and the students began moving again, looking for him.

“Now now!” Sprout called out, waving her hands to get their attention. “Perhaps he is shy. He can find someone later. Though, please find someone quickly, it’ll make things easier on you.” He looked up and she was looking right at him.

“But enough of that. On to the next matter. Rules, School and otherwise.” The words in the air pulled apart and rearranged with an elegant sweep of her wand. They rearranged again to a map. (The third floor corridor was blinking very brightly.)

They rearranged into the cookie cutter cat, and Ron wasn’t paying attention to what she was saying anymore. He wondered if he would get in trouble if he just left.

The words were twisting again, Quidditch Tryouts blinking brightly at the top, as Ron slipped quietly back into the hall and fell on the bed. He neglected his clothes, deciding he would shower and change in the morning, and fell right asleep.


End file.
